How weird are you? Oddball minds of the western world

Almost everything we know about human psychology comes from studying people like us – trouble is, we have a really strange way of thinking

IF YOU are reading this, chances are that you're WEIRD. Unless New Scientist reader surveys have got it wrong, your cultural background is almost certainly western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic, aka WEIRD. It's a categorisation that sets you apart from 7 out of 8 people in the world.

But why pick such a derogatory acronym? WEIRD people may be in a minority, but surely that doesn't mean we're strange. Or does it?

All humans have the same kind of brain, so you could be forgiven for believing that what goes on inside your head is normal. Indeed, this is the tacit assumption made by most psychologists. When they want to find out how people think, they tend ...

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